Biomechanical Model for Dynamic Analysis of the Human Gait

Biomechanical models are important tools in the study of human motion. The human body can be defined as an articulated system in complete static or dynamic equilibrium, where internal forces produce joint movements in the body segments. This work proposes a biomechanical model for the dynamic analysis of the lower limbs during human gait, with continuous cycle, considering kinematic and kinematic data collected from seven volunteers, with no history of pathology related to human gait, walking under a treadmill with controlled speed. The proposed model was developed in Motion View software (Altair) and is based on a kinematic chain to represent the segments of the body, connected by rotational joints with defined viscoelastic parameters. The geometry of the model is similar to the human skeleton, with dimensions based on the anthropometric data of the volunteers, and agglomerates in 8 segments, upper limbs, hips, thighs, legs and feet. The kinematic data, captured by motion analysis system Qualisys® with 8 cameras, were used to determine the joint angles, using Cardan’s angular theory, and together with the ground reaction forces collected by force platforms installed under the instrumented treadmill, it is possible to estimate spatio-temporal variables and force transfer at the joints for each gait cycle. To validate the model, we compared the variables found and the previously published data.